They had that in the tasting?
Ive looked at the example exams and the theory part seems pretty simple indeed.
Nope, that was included in one or two of the, I dunno, 300 short questions in the theory part.
That gets rolled out for tasting at Diploma.
When I took advanced back in 15, my experience mirrored Otto’s. I attended a weekend of classes more to learn how to write for their style. From what I understand, Advanced is more difficult now and is a 2-day exam with a vastly more difficult tasting portion than the joke I took. I wish it was more difficult then as Diploma was a big time jump. Especially when it came to writing out the theory.
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You remember what wines they had in the tasting in your exam? Ive seen the list of possibilities but would be cool to hear an actual example. Same to you Keith
For advanced or Diploma?
Advanced, it was a base level Jadot Beaujolais Villages and the other wine was some forgettable Chardonnay.
Again though, they have upped the game for advanced now and it’s a proper tasting exam. I actually wouldn’t mind sitting for it to dust off the rust and also have a better idea as to what to teach for when I take on students. I’ve mostly taught them for Diploma-level tasting with the mindset of: teach them for the much more difficult exam so that the one in front of them is much easier.
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I think there was one rather simple white, perhaps a Sauvignon Blanc, and a “premium red” which was some Penfolds Shiraz or something. Don’t know how it is today if things have changed since.
Did you call the red “A horrible overdone overoaked gloopy garbage that shouldn’t be served to anyone”? 
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Yes, but on the paper I had to go with the terms required by the WSET.
Nicely done UX.
Are these are all of the official WSET descriptors or just a subset? It’s interesting there are some pretty obvious omissions (to me):
Rhone descriptors - garrigue, olive, iron, funk (I guess they have game, but it’s not the same)
Maritime descriptors: chalk, seaspray, saline - how can you possibly describe Chablis (or BdB or muscadet) without these?
A whole host of of common aromatics like incense, saffron, curry, 5-spice
But the biggest omission is a way to distinguish elegant from rustic and refined in the quality of the body, tannins, etc. It seems irrelevant which color your cherry fruit is, if you can’t describe the nature of the tannins being chunky/astringent versus powdery/refined. It seems a pretty important way to distinguish the quality of 2020 Montrose (WK 100, “beautifully powdery tannins”) vs.2020 Lascombes (WK 88, “heavy handed, drying”)
Not in anyway a ding on you for creating this - just my own commentary on the limitations of this tasting note method!
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Here the SAT
And the level 4 SAT
The format and descriptors are based on the official WSET Level 3 SAT. The most recent version (2022, issue 2 which tastingnotes.vin is based on) can be found here:
But yeah, the SAT does have some omissions that seem odd. “Saline” in particular is one that I use a lot.
As someone pointed out earlier, these are just the standard descriptors in the WSET’s “Wine Lexicon”. The textbook does say that “you can use the descriptors in the Wine Lexicon, but you do not need to limit yourself to these terms.” So apparently there is some flexibility to mention other flavors and descriptors that seem appropriate. I plan to add a text box to this form in the next few days so that visitors can add their own descriptors to a tasting note.
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From the level 4 SAT
Note to students:
The WSET Level 4 Wine-Lexicon is designed to be a prompt and a guide which you do not need to memorise. You can pass the
tasting examination if you use the descriptors in the Wine-Lexicon but you do not need to limit yourself to these terms and the
examiners will accept other descriptors so long as they are accurate.
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@Mikko_Tuomi @Keith_A_k_e_r_s @Scott_Silton @Vince_T FYI, I have added some text boxes to the form so that you can add your own arbitrary descriptors for aromas and flavors. Just enter your descriptors as a comma separated list. (e.g. “mud, salinity, pine needles”) I also made a few changes to make the generated tasting notes a little more fluent.
If anyone runs into problems, please let me know.
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Wish I had that when I was studying for the level 3 exam. May use it for 4 though if applicable.
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Thanks for the tip. I’m taking 4 in March so this will be of help.
For me structure is paramount, parsing fruit salad secondary.
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I wanted to let people know that I made another small improvement to the tastingnotes.vin form. You can now unselect options.
For example, if you are tasting a white wine and accidentally tap “low” for tannin (when you intended to omit the tannin note altogether), there had previously been no way to clear the tannin value except to reload the page. Now you can tap the selected value a second time to completely clear that section of the form.
A small improvement, but handy if you have butterfingers like me.
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Really nice site! Good luck with your class.
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There is nothing creative in what you did, and certainly nothing that promotes or encourages an intelligent and personal approach to wine appreciation. It might help a wine bro shave a little time off of working towards his WSET diplomas that he will tell everyone about within five minutes of meeting them, but it does not help in any way to promote the discipline and careful thought that a serious wine lover would bring to the WSET courses and the sincere and important mission of that organization.
Writing tasting notes requires a degree of experience, memory, talent and hard work that cannot be replaced by taking a list of words and using it to create a limited sphere of reference which you limit further by taking away all contextual considerations (for example which notes are more prominent at which point on the palate.)
I did not need to see your comment further down than you have never taken a WSET course to realize that fact. You cannot even see what you are missing.
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Merry Christmas to you too!
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